Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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We expect bodies sealed in tombs to remain there. Or, if they are missing, to have been moved by someone. When Mary Madeline sees that the sealing stone has been rolled away, she expects that the tomb has been robbed, or at least disturbed, by outsiders. (Her expectations in this regard turn out to be pitifully inadequate.) And when, a few minutes later that morning, in that same cool garden, she hears a man’s voice behind her ask, “What are you crying about, lady?” she expects it to be the gardener. Makes sense: someone hired by the owner to keep the weeds down and the family tomb empty, clean and ready for use. “Just tell me where you’ve put him,” she says, “and I’ll take him away.” Her expectations were old expectations. She had not yet been “Eastered.” She had not yet seen the ultimate power of God, but she was about to.

The disciples expected a person to be either substantial, that is flesh-and-blood (in which case that person could eat food and offer the holes in his body for another to touch), or to be ghost-like (insubstantial) in which case that person could walk through walls and appear out of nowhere. Their limited expectations couldn’t contain the risen Christ, who was like nothing they had ever seen or dreamed of. They had not yet witnessed the amazing power of God – but they were beginning to.

We sometimes think of Easter as the end of the story. It is, of course, the end of one story, but it is the beginning of another, even more wonderful, story. Easter begins the marvelous story of a remarkable people, the early Christians, who (seeing the world through resurrection glasses) threw their old expectations – read “limitations” – in the ash can, and lived, literally, in a world where, as Paul said, “all things are possible.” For once you have seen a dead man walking, is there anything that cannot be? Like us, they had expected the barrier between life and death to be impermeable When it proved not to be, they began to ask what other staggering things might be true? They took risks, gave up everything, transformed themselves, and others, and eventually the world. Make no mistake: it was the resurrection hope, that “because he lives” (as the hymn says) we can toss out our old, limiting expectations and know that all things are possible, which made the early church a beacon of hope in a hopeless world.

Expectations are very important, for we often see what we expect to see. (For the word “expectation,” by the way, we could just as easily substitute the word “assumption” or “prejudice.”) Expectations can be helpful or harmful. If we are pedestrians on a crosswalk in New York City, and if we expect that New York City cab approaching us not to yield us the right-of-way, that’s a good, life-saving expectation. But some expectations are harmful. They harden our brains against the truth and limit our possibilities. When I was a young child, I came into contact with very few black people. Those I did know either cleaned house for my mother, or worked for my father. Most of them couldn’t read or write; a few could, but just barely. I came to expect black people to be uneducated and, therefore, incapable of serious work. Which was a terrible disservice to black people, and an even worse disservice to me. Remember, I didn’t burn crosses. I didn’t ride around in a pickup truck shouting racial epithets – in fact I was properly appalled by such behavior. My hatred was hidden in my expectations.

We have many expectations, and the media study them carefully and play them back to us. We expect rich people to be callous and large corporations to be greedy: you get a plate full of that watching television. But it ain’t necessarily so. God has done wonderful things with rich people over the years and with corporations. We expect juveniles to be delinquent. And young career people to be promiscuous. And families to be dysfunctional. And athletes to use drugs. But, time and again, the God who raised Jesus from the dead comes crashing through our expectations. In our personal lives we expect things to stay the same: mom’s never going to change, nor husband, nor boss. We think our pain, whatever it is, will never go away. Jesus told his disciples, as he was saying goodbye, “So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” The message of Easter is that God is so powerful that nothing need remain as it is or as it always has been. Dead people can live again. We can live lives without limits. All things are possible.

Gail O’Day writes about the “so what” of Easter. So we have some old stories about Jesus dying on a cross, and rising, and ascending into heaven. So what? The stories are precious, she says, because “ultimately they are (not about Jesus, but) about us ….they open up for those who believe fresh possibilities of life as children of God. Fresh possibilities of life. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are new!” Fresh possibilities of life: not entangled in a net of old expectations, assumptions, prejudices and limitations. Believing, knowing that if God can overcome death he can also overcome all those lesser things that lead to death, all those little graves we dig for ourselves every day – anger, and bitterness, and addiction, and fear, and jealously, and pride, and cowardice. Because of Easter we don’t have do die by any of these things. Easter opens up all possibilities. It rolls away every stone.

When once we see the limitless power of God (and we see it best in the resurrection) we no longer limit ourselves -- which is something we do, otherwise, all the time. A seminary graduate was grousing to another about the appointment he had just received from his bishop. He felt he deserved better. “I don’t do little, country churches,” he said. His friend replied, “You know the world is a better place because Michelangelo didn’t say, ‘I don’t do ceilings.’” Think about it. He didn’t limit himself. He believed in the limitless power of the Easter God.. The world is a better place because a German monk named Martin Luther didn’t say, “I don’t do doors.” Or because an Oxford don named John Wesley didn’t say, “I don’t do fields.” The world is a better place because Moses didn’t say, “I don’t do rivers.” Noah didn’t say, “I don’t do arks.” David didn’t say, “I don’t do giants.” Paul didn’t say, “I don’t do Gentiles.” Mary Magdalene didn’t say, “I don’t do feet,” and Jesus didn’t say, “I don’t do crosses.” Easter people don’t limit themselves for, to do so, is not to trust God. Charles Wesley had it just right:

Soar we now where Christ has led,

Following our exalted head,

Made like him, like him we rise,

Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.

Alleluia!